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Features highly automated driving, vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-infrastructure communication and connectivity solutions. It is for the development of this type of technological functions of the cars of the future that the Nardò Technical Center (Ntc) – the Salento testing center owned by Porsche and managed since 2012 by Porsche Engineering Group GmbH – has launched a new division in Lecce for the development of software for intelligent and connected vehicles.
With this division – in which computer engineers, software architects, developers and computer science graduates will be hired – the Salento test center strengthens its position as a technological partner for the integrated development and testing of the vehicles of the future. The role of digital technologies is in fact increasingly central in the future of the automotive industry and this division has the “task – explains Antonio Gratis, managing director of Ntc – to develop and test this type of function for our customers directly in Nardò”. The test center – which offers cutting-edge engineering services for testing the vehicles of over 90 car manufacturers worldwide – thus becomes an integrated technological pole, closely interconnected with the software development and validation activities of Porsche Engineering.
The choice of Lecce is not accidental. In the Salento capital there is a large network of training centers, the University of Salento, many partners and proximity to the test tracks of Nardò where the software experts and engineers of the new division will be able to test, in real time , the advanced technological solutions identified, tests also facilitated by the recently installed 5G network. In fact, last December Porsche Engineering and Vodafone Business built Europe’s first hybrid 5G private network (Mobile Private Network – MPN) in the center to allow customers real-time data transmission, broadband and low latency, as well as that greater safety and reliability. The software division and the communication infrastructure confirm the strategic weight of the test center which has over 20 tracks, test facilities spread over an area of over 700 hectares, more than 185 employees, and a unique high-speed loop in the world with length of 12.6 kilometers, allowing vehicles to be tested in extreme conditions.